Browsing by Author "Eramudugolla, Ranmalee"

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    Effects of prismatic adaptation on spatial gradients in neglect: a comparison of visual and auditory target detection with central attentional load
    (Elsevier, 2010-07) Eramudugolla, Ranmalee; Boyce, Angela; Irvine, Dexter; Mattingley, Jason
    Prismatic adaptation is increasingly recognised as an effective procedure for rehabilitating symptoms of spatial neglect – producing relatively long-lasting improvements on a variety of spatial attention tasks. The mechanisms by which the aftereffects of adaptation change neglect patients’ performance on these tasks remain controversial. It is not clear, for example, whether adaptation directly influences the pathological ipsilesional attention bias that underlies neglect, or whether it simply changes exploratory motor behaviour. Also, while there is considerable evidence for prism effects on neglect symptoms in the visual, proprioceptive and tactile systems, few studies have examined the generalization of aftereffects to sensory systems that are not directly involved in the adaptation procedure itself. Here we used visual and auditory versions of a target detection task with central attentional load. Under these conditions, patients with spatial neglect demonstrated a spatial gradient in their ability to detect peripheral visual or auditory targets. The effect of prism adaptation on the patients’ pathological attention gradient on these two tasks was compared. The findings have implications for understanding the level at which prism adaptation may be acting on neglect symptoms.